Rainforest Drones

Overview

The XPrize Rainforest international competition's main objective is to inspire the development of innovative technology for conservation efforts. This iniative tasks engineers, biologists, and everyone in between to research and create novel technologies to rapidly survey rainforest biodiversity and process this data to deliver new insights.

Duke University's Rainforest XPRIZE team, the Blue Devil Rainforest Divers, utilizes cutting edge conservation technology research to develop a solution to remotely collect and process data from harsh rainforest environments. For species identification, the team will:

Collect images and videos of flora and fauna using drone photography and drone deployed camera traps

Record bird calls through drone deployed sound recorders

Gather samples of insects and plant material for DNA barcoding

I have been apart of this project through a semester-long class (Spring 2022) and a research trip to Costa Rica (Summer 2022). During the course, I was apart of the Long-Range Mother drone team, whose goal was to increase the flight range of the mother drone and construct a landing platform. In Costa Rica, I was a drone pilot and engineering team member. My management and technical contributions include:

CAD attachment for landing platform

Motherdrone flight process manual

Bug trapper rapid prototype

Production of team video, securing our place in the semifinals

Capture of high quality imagery and videos through drone piloting

Photogrammetry of La Selva